When He Came Back
by storiesofamind
Summary: She comes home one day and finds him sitting there. He looks up, smiles and offers a word of greeting but she just barges past him and to her bedroom. She's not ready to deal with all her built up emotion.


**Just a little something I thought I'd write. I thought it was pretty cute, (:**

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><p>She comes home one day and finds him sitting there. He looks up, smiles and offers a word of greeting but she just barges past him and to her bedroom. She's not ready to deal with all her built up emotion. It's bad enough that she has to hear Kurt's phone calls <em>every week <em>and now he's just outside her bedroom door in the next room.

She's not quite sure where they went wrong. They were happy together. In love. But they started to fight. They would fight for hours and hours. One day she came back home and he was gone. Left a note on the bench explaining he'd gone back to Lima for a while because things were getting too much for him. She called and emailed and texted but nothing would work so she quit. She left him a message telling him that if he refused to talk to her then they were over. And she never heard from or saw him again. Until now.

She can hear the soft mumbling coming from the other room. Kurt must be home she assumes. But the voice is too deep and gruff to be her best friends. Maybe Blaine? She climbs up off the bed and pulls open her door a crack. She peers out and can faintly see the outline of someone. It's not Blaine. She knows that. She strains her ears to hear the conversation that he's having with the stranger.

"...walked right past me. Didn't say a word. Like she doesn't even want to know me," she hears him say. The stranger sighs out in thought and then moves out of her line of vision.

"Nah!" Rachel would know that voice anywhere. She curses under her breath, unhappy that Kurt and Blaine have allowed both these men in their apartment. She keeps listening to the conversation.

"Nah? What do you mean nah?"

"I mean, it's not you that she doesn't want to know. Maybe it's the memories that you bring that she doesn't want to know. Maybe she doesn't want to know them,"

"That is the smartest thing I've ever heard you say, Noah Puckerman. When did you become so wise?"

She lets out a groan over the noise the two men are making. She pushes open the door and makes her way towards the kitchen. Unfortunately, she has to walk past the living room where _they _are. They call her name but she keeps walking. She walks into the kitchen and leans against the bench. She stays there until she can hear them disappear out the door and then she sinks to the ground with her head in her hands and lets the emotions that she's shut out for _years _finally take over her fragile body.

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><p>He's been living with them for a month and she still refuses to talk to him. When she passes him in the hall she puts her head down and walks a little faster. When he's watching TV in the living room she goes to her bedroom and reads a book. She doesn't say anything at dinner when Kurt <em>forces <em>them to eat together. Any other day she'll just hole up in her room and eat there. He's tried to talk to her. He approached her every day for a week before he realised that he wasn't getting anywhere. They just let the days pass by without speaking to each. Sooner or later they know they'll have to talk but she prefers later rather than sooner.

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><p>"Rachel!" Kurt screams. She lifts her head and her eyes flicker over to the calendar on her wall. She's been circling the days and the weeks since he arrived. Just waiting for the day when he leaves. She's got two and a half months crossed off on her calendar. They speak now. Sort of. They say hello when they pass in the hall or they ask each other to pass the salt at dinner. It's not much. But it's progress.<p>

"Rachel!" Kurt screams again. She scrambles off her bed and wanders out to where Kurt is standing in the kitchen. She can see him hovering in the living room and she just _knows _that whatever Kurt wants it's to do with him. Kurt gives her a sickly sweet smile. "Rachel,"

"What is it?" she asks him. Kurt looks at her and smiles. He seems hesitant she notices. "What do you want?" she asks again.

"I've got to leave for a class in fifteen minutes and Blaine's out with friends and someone needs to take Finn to the dentist because he's just so _clueless_." Kurt explains. She opens her mouth to protest but Kurt jumps in before she can. "If I ever needed a friend, Rachel, it would be now."

"Kurt..." she groans. Kurt looks at her with _that _expression and she knows that she can't tell him no. She doesn't have to talk to him, right? "Fine," she says. "I'll chauffer your brother around the city. Even if he _should _know his way around."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Kurt throws his arms around her and kisses her cheek. "You're the best, Rach! The best!" He grabs his keys and runs out of the apartment to take whatever spontaneous class he's decided to take this time.

"Let's go," she says to him. She rummages around for her phone and her keys and her wallet and then leads him out the door. She doesn't say anything for the rest of the trip.

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><p>Things have been a little less tense since the ride to the dentist. They know they can be in each other's presence now without wanting to break down in tears. They know they don't need to yell at each other in each other's presence. In fact, their talking to each other a little more. They still have to work through their problems and she's on a mission to make sure they do.<p>

They're sitting in the living room one day when she decides to just ask him straight out. So she does. "Why did you leave me?"

"Hmm?" He looks over at her and raises an eyebrow before he finally gets it. "I couldn't stay Rachel. I hated what I was doing to you. You weren't happy back then. We were fighting all the time and it was straining us. We weren't working anymore,"

"I... I..." She can't quite finish that sentence before her eyes are brimming with tears. "I thought you didn't love me anymore..."

"Rach," Finn slides over and pulls her into his arms while she lets her tears fall into his chest. "I loved you so much. I left _because _I loved you. You were the one thing that I wanted to get right. And look at you. You're _happy _now." He buries his face in her hair and she nods into him. She knows now. At least she knows.

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><p>They talk casually now. Everything's out in the open and there's no secrets. They get along more now, falling into old habits. She's happier than she was when he wasn't around. Kurt and Blaine notice. They exchange knowing looks across the dinner table. Blaine catches him alone one day because he recognizes Rachel's patterns and he knows something's turning over in her pretty little head.<p>

"Hey man," Blaine catches Finn's wrist, "can I talk to you?"

"Sure, what's up?" Finn turns around and Blaine leads Finn into a room away from Rachel and motions for him sit down.

"How are things between you and Rach?" he asks tentatively.

"Fine... Why?"

"No reason," Blaine looks at the ground and Finn takes this as the end of the conversation. He stands but Blaine grabs his wrist again. "Any special girl in your life?"

"Well... there is this _one _girl," Finn explains. Blaine shakes his head but Finn keeps on talking. "I really like her you know? She's funny, smart, pretty. She's just a great girl,"

"What about Rachel?"

"What about her?"

"She's happier now that you're back and I just don't want her to get hurt again." Blaine explains. Finn looks at him slightly confused and Blaine feels obliged to elaborate. "She's fallen back into a pattern, Finn. A pattern that's not exactly healthy and it's your doing. If you hurt her you'll have to answer to me. She's like my sister and I won't let you hurt her,"

"Rach will be fine, Blaine. She's not happy because I'm here, she's happy because her life is finally going right," Finn says convincingly. Blaine's not so sure.

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><p>He brings her back to the apartment one day. <em>Montayne<em>. The name makes her want to be sick. He tries to introduce his girlfriend to her but she's just a bitch to the man-stealing cow. Granted, they aren't technically together anymore but she feels as though she's always had claim to his newly sculpted body. She hates that she's become second to that girl on _her _lounge. Finn tries his hardest to get her to warm up to his tall, skinny, blonde girlfriend with the perfect nose. But she won't. Finn ambushes her with Montayne in the afternoon and she can't back out. She's up against the wall in a corner.

"Rach, this is Montayne. She's a... friend," he says, uncertain on coming clean about his relationship status. She plasters a fake smile on her face, a smile that Finn can tell is fake.

"Hi," Montayne reaches out to shake her hand and she takes it, her smile still ever so _fake_.

"Hi, I'm Rachel. Rachel Berry. Finn's ex-girlfriend." She shakes her hand and Finn looks at her horrified and that's when he realises. He realises Blaine's right. He could hit himself for being so stupid. Montayne drags Finn out of the room and she smiles when she hears the muffled conversation.

"...didn't tell me that you lived with you _ex-girlfriend_!"

"Montayne. She's lived here for _longer _than me," she hears him try to explain. She can imagine the frustrated sigh that Montayne is bound to release.

"I don't care," Montayne declares in a scratchy whisper. "She has to go or I do."

"You can't ask me to choose between my girlfriend and my _best friend_, Montayne. That isn't fair," Finn pleads. She falters a little when she hears him call her his best friend and she knows Montayne is asking too much of him. "Then I guess I choose her." There're footsteps, a door opening and closing and more footsteps towards the kitchen. She sees him round the corner and he looks ready to murder her. She opens her mouth to apologise but he beats her to it. "I don't want to hear it, Rachel. That was low, even for you,"

"Finn, I am so sorry..." But he's already walked out the door and left her standing alone.

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><p>They're back to not talking again. He's still really pissed about what she did to his relationship with Montayne. But he thinks he knows why she did it because he felt the same resentment when she brought home her attractive male co-worker. He felt like he has claim on her even though they aren't together. He's frustrated but he thinks it's because he isn't over her like he claims. He wants to be over like he tells everyone but he doesn't think he can. She has some sort of hold over him and at the end of the day he'll choose her. He wonders why life is being so hard on him.<p>

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><p>They've grown close again. <em>Really <em>close. He holds her in his arms when they watch a movie and he kisses the top of her head and they're _convinced _that there's nothing there. At least he's convinced that there's nothing there. She's not so sure. She feels herself falling deeper and deeper every day. She knew she was screwed the moment she saw him sitting on her lounge that day. She's too frightened to say it to him because she's scared he won't say it back. So she decides on an embarrassment free way to do it.

"Finn?" she says as she passes him in the hall.

"Yeah?" he says, raising an eyebrow in question. She sucks in her breath and lets it out in a loud sigh.

"I love you." She turns on her heels and runs out of the hall and into her bedroom before he has a chance to say that he doesn't love her back. Only he doesn't. He just stands there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes blinking open and closed.

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><p>He ambushes her. He wraps his arms around her back and nuzzles into her neck and she just stands there in surprise. She whirls around and pushes against his chest to try and escape his grasp but he doesn't let her go. She raises an eyebrow in confusion and he only crashes his lips on hers. She relents at first in surprise but soon melts into the kiss. He pulls her closer to his body, wanting to get her as close as physically possible without getting <em>physical <em>there in the middle of the living room. She pushes away from him for air and he leans down close to her ear and he whispers things that are only meant for her. And then he says one last thing.

"I love you too,"

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><p><strong>Oooh! Sweet. It's completely spoiler free as well. That's Australia for you. Three or four weeks behind.<strong>

**I do not own Glee.**

**Reviews!**


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